出口退税对出口产品质量的影响

The Effect of Export VAT Rebate on Export Product Quality

本文运用2002-2007年间海关统计数据库和工业企业数据库的匹配数据,研究出口退税对出口产品质量的影响。与以往研究出口产品质量的文献不同,本文将无进口中间产品的一般贸易作为处理组,与不受退税和关税影响的加工贸易出口进行比较,从而剔除贸易自由化的影响。本文的实证分析显示,企业和产业层面的证据都表明出口退税加剧了市场竞争,导致出口企业的成本加成下降,促使企业通过提高研发投入提升出口产品质量。具体而言,出口退税率每提高1%,一般贸易企业的出口产品质量比加工贸易高出考察期内企业出口产品平均质量水平的3.69%。

We use the matched data from China Customs Database and the National Bureau of Statistics during2002-2007 to investigate the impacts of export VAT rebate on export product quality. Compared with the previous studies, we exclude the confounding effects of trade liberalization by employing the processing trade and the ordinary trade which do not import intermediates from abroad as the control group and treatment group respectively. Our empirical analysis suggests that export VAT rebate intensifies the market competition on the firm and industry level, leaving lower markup for firms and forcing them to upgrade the export product quality by increasing RD investment. Specifically, one percentage point increase in the export VAT rebate can lead to3.69% increase in terms of the average quality level of 2002-2007.